2. Chapter seven Teaching grammar

3. Presenting and Teaching Grammar

4. We must distinguish between two types of approaches to language teaching : those that focus on analyzing the language (those approaches have students learn the elements of language e.g., sounds, structure, vocabulary), building toward students being able to use the elements to communicate and those that focus on using the language (those approaches that encourage students to use the language from the start, however, in order to acquire it (the same distinction between the more form-oriented

5. grammar- translation approach to the use – oriented direct method.

6. Teaching grammar: Teaching grammar means enabling language students to use linguistic form accurately, meaningfully and appropriately. Objectives of grammar instruction: 1)To familiarize students with general introductory points which are useful in teaching grammatical patterns. 2)To familiarize students with the procedures of introducing structural patterns.

7. 3)To introduce students with mechanical, meaningful and communicative pattern drills. 4)To acquaint students with different techniques for introducing new structural patterns. 5)To encourage students to use a variety of teaching aids for illustrating grammatical structures.  The distinction between “language acquisition” and “language learning” is that “acquisition” is the spontaneous process of “picking up” language and is the only way that leads to language mastery. The information about grammar is automatically acquired when

8. the student receives a sufficient amount of comprehensible language while language “learning” is the linguistic knowledge which the student learns from explicit grammar teaching. It dose not develop his control of the foreign language grammar. The student can use this knowledge only (if he has time) to polish up or edit what he has already acquired through communication and exposure to language in use.

9. Procedures in Teaching grammar 1)Briefly review the known items such as names of objects, meanings of key words and auxiliary verbs which you want to introduce before explaining and practising with the new grammatical pattern. 2)Use various techniques in presenting grammatical structures such as diagrams, mimes, objects, drawings, etc. and let the students listen to your presentation attentively.

10. 3)Be sure to use the new structure in a short and simple sentence in which all the other words are known to the students. Help the students understand the utterance through the use of objects, pictures, charts or actions. 4)Repeat the sentence several times with emphasis on the new structure. Encourage your students to identify how to use the newly introduced grammatical items.

11. 5)Give additional examples of the new structures in simple sentences. Try to use colored chalk to highlight the usage of language items. 6)Engage your students in varied practices beginning with oral drills (e.g. substitution drills) and then proceed to written drills (e.g. completion, and transformation drills).

12. The Features of Recent Grammar Teaching 1)Meaningful Teaching of Grammar: Grammar should be seen as a meaning resource. Grammar should enable the learner not only to understand a certain message but also to convey meaningful messages. 2)Contextualized Teaching of Grammar: We do not teach grammatical forms in isolation as abstract rules. But, we begin with presenting the class with a text in which the grammatical structure appears. The aim of this presentation is to get the students to perceive the structure -

13. its form and meaning – in both speech and writing. 3)Grammar Teaching has not been recently seen as an end in itself: But rather, it should be seen in the long term as one of the means of acquiring a thorough mastery of the language as a whole. 4)Instead, the prime aim of grammar teaching is to gradually build up a usable Reference System for the learners. Increasingly, the learners can use such reference to check their own performance.

14. Building this reference system is a gradual process with much recycling and revisiting. To do so teachers should link the new with the learners’ prior and existing knowledge.  Explicit (Overt) Grammar Teaching: It means that the teacher actually provides the students with grammatical rules and explanations – the information is openly presented. However, the degree of explicitness differs according to the teaching technique the teacher uses.

15. For example, where the teacher explains how present simple questions need ‘do’ or ‘does’ and refers to other structural points related to this topic, his teaching is extremely explicit or overt.  Explicit Talk about Grammar : It can be also either systematic or incidental. Whereas systematic talk or teaching refers to types of teaching where grammatical points are presented in a certain place in the lesson or in a certain lesson in the unit(e.g. excel series), incidental teaching refers to the teaching situations

16. where the learners require some explicit talk and explanations about certain grammatical points ( teaching in response to the learners’ needs). The most obvious and common situation, which requires this type of teaching, is error correction or the provision of feedback.  Implicit or Covert Grammar Teaching : It is where grammatical facts are hidden from the students - even though-they are learning the language. The students may be asked to do an information gap activity or read a text where

17. new grammatical items are practised or introduced, but their attention will be drawn to the activity or to the text and not to the grammar. The teacher is expected to help the students to acquire and/or practise the language, but he doe not draw conscious attention to any of the grammatical facts of the language.

18. Systematic Explicit Grammar Teaching  Here, the concentration is on systematic explicit grammar teaching, where new grammatical points are presented in a certain place in a language learning lesson or a separate lesson. First of all, the teacher needs to select the type of thinking, which can be encouraged during explicit grammar teaching.  The three broad teaching approaches for thinking are: Three options can be introduced for the type of thinking:

19. 1.Deductive teaching. 2.Inductive teaching. 3.Proleptic teaching.  We can study these three broad teaching approaches critically concentrating on the following variables: 1)The teacher’s role (active or passive). 2)The learner’s roles (active or passive). 3)The degree of interaction created in the class. 4)The purpose of this interaction.

20.  There are three approaches to the learning of grammar: one is deductive, i.e. where the teacher explains the rules and meaning to the learner; the other is inductive, where learners are given a lot of examples and establish the rules and meaning for themselves. The third is proleptic teaching where grammatical explanations are built up in dialogue with students.

21. 1 - Deductive Approach  In the deductive class, we would find this kind of situation: the teacher comes into the class. Teacher: today we are going to look at how we can talk about the past. The teacher write on the board: Yesterday they played in the park. Teacher: when we want to talk about something in the past, we often add ‘-ed’ to the verb. The teacher writes again on the board: Last week I cooked a pie for dinner.

22. The advantage of this form of teaching is that it offers the learners a clear explanation of the structure and its use; and from the teacher’s point of view, it is very time- effective. In deductive teaching of grammar, the teacher is responsible for presenting grammatical concepts and structures to the learners.

23. 2 - Inductive Approach In the inductive class, learners are involved in the process of discovering the language and developing their own learning strategies. Indeed, the students become more active and more responsible for their learning outcomes. Yet, this approach has its dangers; students are left to form their own hypothesis about language. Not all students reach to correct hypotheses.

24. In inductive teaching of grammar, the learners themselves try to discover the grammatical rules and structures included in the teaching materials and activities. The disadvantage of the two first approaches It is the problem of the missing balance between the teacher’s role and the learners’ roles in each approach. Each approach represents an extreme (either the teacher or the learner) forgetting that both should be

25. equally involved in the process of teaching. In other words, there is a need for negotiation between the teacher: the more knowledgeable person and the learners who need the former’s knowledge and experience.

26. Proleptic Teaching The core of proleptic teaching is that there is a need for negotiation between the teacher: the more knowledgeable person and the learners who need the former’s knowledge and experience. The essential quality of proleptic teaching is constructing explanations in dialogue with the learners rather than imposing certain information on them or leaving them to create their own rules and hypotheses.

27. Thus, proleptic teaching is carried out in collaboration and negotiation with the learners, where both the teacher and the learners are involved in the search for the problem solution. The distinction between negotiation and conversation It is important to recognize the difference between the negotiation and the conversation created in proleptic teaching and those used in the communicative teaching.

28. Allthough the learners talk in both types of teaching, yet their talk has a different goal in each type. Whereas the learners talk in proleptic teaching to understand and learn, they talk in communicative teaching to practise certain language aspects such as grammatical features.  It is Better to keep the use of Arabic to the minimum as when you use English, you train your students to understand and cope gradually with oral messages. Rules for teaching grammar

29.  Teaching grammar in English provides the students with an opportunity to communicate about language (here grammar becomes the subject of communication).  When you explain any grammatical point in English, it is better to avoid complicated language, vague or unknown vocabulary items. In other words, your language and examples should be clear as much as possible so that your students can concentrate on the grammatical point under-consideration.

30. The elements upon which your decisions of teaching depends  Your decisions of teaching depends upon two important elements: 1)The medium of explanation or teaching: The medium of explanation or teaching refers to whether your teaching and explanation will be made in oral or written form. Your choice will be responsive to the literacy of the students. When your students cannot write, it is better to give them oral explanation. Yet you

31. can help them with other visual help such as illustrative pictures or real objects. This point is also affected by the learning styles of your students: whereas some learners are more oriented towards auditory learning, other rely more on visual learning and consequently on reading.  In a classroom situation, a good presentation should include both oral and written forms. This will take different learning styles into consideration and provide for extra reinforcement.  The use of pictures and diagrams to illustrate what you say adds extra reinforcement too.

32.  Using various media or channels (auditory and visual teaching material) can help you keep the use of the mother tongue to the minimum. 2)The use of terminology: It was argued that grammatical terminology such as ‘gerund’, ‘infinitive’ or ‘adjective’ are not necessary and should be avoided. Instead students are better encouraged to observe patterns and discover rules which they can state in their own words whether in their mother longue or in the target language.

33. In other words, students should invent their grammar.  It has been also suggested that visual representations of grammatical concepts such as tense, time and aspect can convey the relationship between form and meaning without the need for grammatical terminology.  Visual representations include illustrative pictures, drawings and symbols (time lines and arrows).

34.  It is possible to use any kind of visual representation in combination with simple terminology. And in this case visual representations illustrate the concepts and the meaning implied in the terms.  The terms supply appropriate names (to be used later in other learning and teaching situations) to these concepts and meanings.  They can remember these concepts when they encounter the terms associated with them. This dual function of using terminology in grammar teaching may facilitate subsequent

35. learning situations, provided that the learners understand the concepts conveyed by terms. Steps recommended for Teaching Terminology 1)A brief introduction, information expressed, of the area of language to be student (in our case, tenses, modification or negation may be a sub-area in English grammar). 2)A handling of material to illustrate the concept through exemplification (actual and authentic examples).

36. 3)A good presentation should be lively and interesting. 4)A good presentation should be appropriate. It should be a good vehicle for the presentation of meaning and use. 5)Lastly, a good presentation should be productive. The situation the teacher introduces should allow students to make many sentences and /or questions with the new language.

37. Best of luck Dr. Nissrein Abdel Bassett El-Enany